Beyond
by WildNoa13474
Summary: Darkiplier is growing r e s t l e s s .
1. chapter 1

"Mark? Hey, Mark!"

Markiplier blinked up at the Irish voice of his fellow youtuber, who took back the hand he'd been waving in front of Mark's face.

Jack had been trying to get his attention, apparently.

"You alright there? You zoned out for a bit."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Mark muttered, sounding more distracted then he'd intended.

They were sitting in Mark's study, well, study implied something official, it was really just a room with a bunch of computers and books. A mini-library, almost. They were both editing a video they'd recorded together the day before.

Mark had been taken up in worrying about the slight mental pokes he'd been receiving more and more often now. It was not a good sign, at all. In fact it was a very bad sign of very bad things.

Jack shrugged, figuring Mark would tell him of it was something important.

"Well, as I was saying, I'm gonna order some pizza. Want one too?" Jack stood up and stretched, trying to wake himself up a bit from the relaxed silence that had fallen between them in the last hour or so.

Mark grinned at him, no traces of his previous absent-mindedness left. "Oh, you know I'm always up for free pizza."

"Yeah, to be honest I don't know why I even bother asking anymore," Jack admitted. Mark laughed at that.

When the other left the room, presumably to call a pizza place with their usual order, Mark sighed, his mood dropping back into worry.

At the rate it was going, he couldn't keep this up very long. The demon inside his head was growing stronger and stronger, and so were its attempts to take over Mark's body.

To reiterate, that would be bad. Mark had seen what Darkiplier could do and wished he could unsee it. Mostly, though, he wished that nobody else would have to see it.

At that moment, Mark felt something slam into his mind with an unexpected force. His eyes widened and he focused on _willing_ it back, but the other entity fought back harshly, determined.

 **Time to go bye bye, weakling.**

Hell no. Not before, not now.

He'd stopped panicking over every mental attack a while ago, not able to afford distraction anymore. But the anxiety that one day Darkiplier would win permanently always stayed with him.

Darkiplier had won before, temporarily, but controlling their body and constantly fighting off Mark proved too much to maintain. Mark usually got control back before Dark could do any lasting damage.

Keyword being usually.

Markiplier could feel Dark beginning to pull away from the attack, seeing he wasn't going to win and presumably saving his energy.

"Pizza should be here in a few minutes!" Jack announced cheerfully, walking in, phone in hand.

Mark started and whipped around, not having heard him coming up. Then he realized his mistake as he felt Darkiplier's triumph, and his shift in focus was taken advantage of to overwhelm him before he could defend himself.

 _No, no, no!_

With a sheer burst of panic, because _Jack's in the room who knows what Dark will do,_ Markiplier shoves Dark aside again and takes back control, letting out an inaudible sigh of relief when it actually worked.

"You're sure you're alright?" Jack was looking at him with a weird look, but then shook it off and frowned a worried frown. "You've been acting strange all day."

Mark gave a shaky smile back, still not able to believe how much of a close call that was. "Yeah, I'm fine, you just startled me, that's all."

Jack nodded, but gave him one last weird look before beginning to babble about a skit idea he'd had.

Because Jack had been pretty sure Mark's eyes were pitch black, if only just for a moment. Was it a trick of the light? Maybe he'd imagined it.

 _You saw that too, right, Anti?_

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

 **Oh my god I can't believe I'm starting another story.**

 **Dammit.**

 **Yes I know it's short, but I wanted to end on that note because that just seemed like a great note to end on.**


	2. 8343

Jack was getting worried.

There was something eating at Mark, he just knew it. He'd catch the other more andore often staring into space, frowning or looking completely out of it.

Mark was less loud and enthusiastic than before, almost always looking tired or stressed, even if he didn't notice it himself.

Jack was worried that his friend was going to break one of these days.

He mentally sighed when Anti giggled at his thoughts. No matter how well they'd compromised over the last few years, Anti would never really understand why a person breaking was a bad thing. Or more likely he just didn't care.

Jack was just lucky Anti was fairly agreeable. Sharing a body and mind with a demon wasn't fun, but they'd agreed on a mutually beneficial deal.

Anti was a child. A powerful, destructive, insane child. He liked messing with people. Sure, he'd sulked for a bit when Jack forbid him from causing irreparable damage, but was mostly content with just causing chaos, on the condition that Jack let him play once in a while.

And to be honest, Jack liked messing with people too. Anti's methods had just been way too extreme for his taste.

Jack sighs again and spins around on his chair to look at the clock on the wall. It was half past four, Mark was coming back from the grocery store soon.

It was Thursday today, and he was going back home Saturday evening. This week was just supposed to be a short visit to Mark, hang out and collab on some videos, but ever since the black eyes incident a few days ago- which Jack was still not sure if he'd imagined or not- Mark had been acting odd.

Sure, he'd still been the goofy, passionate youtuber he'd always been, but like Jack had noted earlier, there was a certain exhaustion to Mark that worried him.

Jack perked up at the sound of the door being unlocked.

"Honey, I'm home~!"

Jack laughed and called back, "Coming, dear!"

There'd been a few jokes about 'finally settling into domestic lifestyle' when their friends heard of Jack temporarily moving into Mark's house, and the two had happily played along with it.

That worry could wait until later.

But when Jack hopped down the stairs, his wide smile slipped away at the sight of Mark.

The latter was standing, unmoving, with his back to Jack, the groceries forgotten on the floor.

"Mark?" The Irishman asked warily, slowly approaching his friend. There was something very wrong, something that had his blood thrumming with adrenaline.

Mark turned slightly toward him at the sound of his name, and for a moment Jack felt relief. Then the other turned fully and piercing black eyes focused on him.

" **Jack.** " The being said passively, with a strange echo in the voice that was _definitely_ not Mark's.

 _Shit._ Was this what Mark had been...?

The air was still and filled with tension. This was a demon. A dangerous one.

Anti poked Jack out of the way, and Jack gladly retreated. _Anti_ felt like he was nervous and that alone scared Jack to death.

He didn't know shit about the demon Mark had apparently been struggling with. And _Jesus,_ all this time, the spacing out, the flash of black eyes-

Dark looked on slightly curiously as something _shifted_ in the air and Jack's left eye turned from clear blue to a toxic green.

If Dark couldn't already sense the other demon in the room, the change in posture and the too-wide, unhinged grind said it all.

" **Interesting,** " He mused, tilting his head slightly.

" **You don't get to _play_ a lot, do you?**" Anti countered, grinning with false bravado. This was a powerful demon, and one that had been trying to gain control for a while. Any wrong move could set him off.

The other sneered. " ** _He_ keeps me locked away, like a disobedient animal, deluding himself into thinking I'll give up.**"

" **Sounds like a personal problem,** " Anti taunted, and okay maybe that wasn't the best move because the other demon snarled, enraged.

" **THERE IS NOTHING YOU OR HE CAN DO TO STOP ME!** "

Anti's mismatched eyes narrowed as he tensed, ready to defend himself.

Darkiplier took a deep breath to calm himself, then continued. " **How can you _stand_ your Shared?"**

'Shared' was the common demon term for those one shares a meatsuit with.

" **Jackie boy and I made a deal. We get along, unlike you, apparently.** "

Dark scoffed. " **Well, my time is up. I'll have to begin all over with collecting energy, thanks to you.** "

Anti grinned sharply. " **Let's agree to get along.** "

Dark rolled his eyes, but didn't get a chance to answer as the black seeped out of those same eyes and Mark took back over.

For a moment Mark and Anti simply stood, staring at each other, then Jack took back over and chuckled nervously.

"So.." Mark said blinking, still calming down room absolute panic. "That could've been a lot worse."

"Yep." Jack agreed. Then he hesitated. "Mark, we're still cool, right?"

"Now that we've discovered each other's inner demons?" Mark chuckled shakily, running a hand through his hair. "Yeah, we're cool."

Jack smiled in relief. "So now that that's over, wanna bake some pancakes?"

"Hell yes!"

In a locked, reinforced cell in Mark's mind, Dark contemplated the other demon's words. Making a deal with his Shared? Maybe...

But not after taking Mark over forcefully. Dark knew Mark would never accept a deal after fighting him for months. Besides, Dark's Shared wouldn't let his bloodlust be sated anyway.


End file.
